Government panic as minister sends text announcing his pet cat - named Thatcher - has died

Still here: Margaret Thatcher gets a helping hand from John Major at Westminster Abbey in London during the ceremony to mark Remembrance Day on Wednesday

A text message claiming that a government minister's pet cat - who happened to be named Thatcher - has died sparked a diplomatic panic in Canada last night.

The country's transport minister sent the text to a constituent - but it spread like wildfire at a gala event in Toronto last night.

The misconstrued news spread straight to the top with lightning-like efficiency. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was sombrely - and mistakenly - informed that 84-year-old former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had passed away.

Diplomatic aides rushed to prepare an official statement mourning the death of the Iron Lady.

Then someone thought to put in calls in to Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.

They were met with utter bemusement from puzzled British officials.

In fact, it was actually transport minister John Baird's beloved cat
- named Thatcher, after his political heroine - that had passed away.

Mrs Thatcher - who was out at London's Westminster Abbey to attend
the Remembrance Day Service just a few days ago - is very much still
alive, officials said firmly.

One embarrassed aide had actually started writing the official statement from the Canadian government mourning Mrs Thatcher.

'If the cat wasn't dead, I'd have killed it by now,' he is reported to have said.

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'Thatcher's dead' text sparks government panic (until they realised it was a minister's pet cat, not the Iron Lady)